Nicholas Hytner | The Guardianhttp://www.theguardian.com/profile/nicholashytner
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The National Theatre: is it national enough ?http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2013/dec/02/is-national-theatre-national-enough-lyn-gardner
Having 'national' in your title brings responsibilities, particularly after revelations of stark funding inequalities between London and the regions<p>Back in 2001, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the great, late <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2001/oct/01/theatre.artsfeatures?guni=Article:in%20body%20link">Ken Campbell, the writer, director and improviser, laid out his vision for how he would run the National Theatre</a>, complete with daily entertainment for children and family audiences, magicians in the bar, Ken Dodd and huskies on the main stage (not at the same time) and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/apr/04/jim-carrey-unnatural-act-comedy-gold">Jim Carrey</a> playing Hamlet. Apart from much <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/29/family-theatre-not-just-for-christmas?commentpage=1">increased provision for children and family audiences</a>, not a great deal of what Campbell proposed has come to pass, and perhaps we should all be truly thankful that Nicholas Hytner, the theatre's current artistic director, has saved us from Jim Carrey's great Dane. </p><p>But Campbell's view bears some consideration, as do other <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/oct/22/how-id-run-national-theatre">alternative views of what our NT can and might be </a>and mean, as the NT faces up to its next 50 years with an artistic director designate, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/oct/15/rufus-norris-popular-choice-national-theatre-hytner">Rufus Norris</a>, who takes over in April 2015. Unlike the other shortlist candidates, Norris is very much an NT insider who plenty of people saw as a shoo-in. He may not have run the building yet, but he is steeped in the NT's existing culture.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2013/dec/02/is-national-theatre-national-enough-lyn-gardner">Continue reading...</a>TheatreStageCultureRufus NorrisNational TheatreMon, 02 Dec 2013 17:37:24 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2013/dec/02/is-national-theatre-national-enough-lyn-gardnerLefteris Pitarakis/ReutersThe Queen inspects a War Horse puppet during a visit to the National Theatre to commemorate its 50th anniversary. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/ReutersLefteris Pitarakis/ReutersThe Queen receives flowers from a child actor as she inspects a War Horse puppet during a visit to the National Theatre to commemorate its 50th anniversary in October 2013. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/ReutersLyn Gardner2013-12-02T17:37:24ZClaims of arts crisis 'almost laughable', says Maria Millerhttp://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/jun/20/arts-crisis-laughable-maria-miller
Culture secretary complains she is frustrated by the art world's apparent 'perpetual gloom'<p>Suggestions that the arts are in crisis are almost laughable, according to Maria Miller, the culture secretary, who says she is frustrated by the arts world's apparent &quot;perpetual gloom&quot;.</p><p>Writing in the Guardian, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/20/argued-for-arts-and-won-philistines-economic-case?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487" title="">Miller hits out against</a> figures such as Sir Nicholas Hytner, director of the National Theatre, and Sir Nicholas Serota, the Tate director, who have warned that the arts are on a knife's edge because of a decline in funding.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/jun/20/arts-crisis-laughable-maria-miller">Continue reading...</a>Arts fundingMaria MillerPoliticsCultureNicholas SerotaUK newsThu, 20 Jun 2013 22:20:27 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/jun/20/arts-crisis-laughable-maria-millerPeter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesMaria Miller has hit out at leading arts world figures iwho complain about the effects of funding cuts. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesPeter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesMaria Miller has hit out at leading arts world figures iwho complain about the effects of funding cuts. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesCharlotte Higgins, chief arts writer2013-06-20T22:20:27ZNicholas Hytner: With Shakespeare, the play is just a starting pointhttp://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/apr/12/nicholas-hytner-shakespeare-play
Shakespeare's ambiguity is often taken as a challenge by those who would pin him down. But we should instead see the play as a starting point, and trust actors to finish the job<p>A novel can tell you everything you want to know about what it's trying to say, but&nbsp;plays are by&nbsp;definition incomplete. They&nbsp;are instructions for performance, like musical scores, and they need players to become music.</p><p>Working on <em>Hamlet</em>, Rory Kinnear&nbsp;and I repeatedly found that Shakespeare simply left stuff out – stuff&nbsp;that would have made the play last as long as <em>War and Peace</em> if he'd put&nbsp;it in. What, for instance, are we supposed to think has really gone on between Hamlet and Ophelia before the play starts? That things <em>have</em> gone on is plain from the pile of letters she returns to him. &quot;I did love you once,&quot; he says, though he never says why he's stopped loving her; and I have seen this done so sardonically that it's impossible to believe. And a couple of&nbsp;lines later, he says &quot;I loved you not.&quot; Which doesn't make it any easier to know whether he did, though it's the&nbsp;kind of contradiction lovers go in for. In any event, it feels like there's a missing scene near the start of the play that shows you how they are with each other before things start to go wrong.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/apr/12/nicholas-hytner-shakespeare-play">Continue reading...</a>William ShakespeareTheatreCultureStageFri, 12 Apr 2013 09:01:01 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/apr/12/nicholas-hytner-shakespeare-playDavid Levene/David LevenePieces in a puzzle ... Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear in Othello. Photograph: David LeveneDavid Levene/David LevenePieces in a puzzle ... Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear in Othello. Photograph: David LeveneNicholas Hytner2013-04-12T09:01:01ZDon't starve the regions of culture. It sustains society | Nicholas Hytnerhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/18/nicholas-hytner-cuts-regional-theatres
The proposed cuts to government investment in the arts imperil local communities<p>At a conference last Thursday at the National Theatre, the leaders of 22 English regional theatres described the transformational effect that a thriving performing arts centre has had on their various cities and towns. We were delighted to welcome <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/danny-boyle" title="">Danny Boyle</a>, fresh from his Olympic triumph, to put the case for sustained modest investment in a national theatre network. As he said, theatres &quot;create communities… what they provide is something else to believe in; something in our cities and towns that isn't Wetherspoon and Walkabout pubs and Mario Balotelli and John Terry&quot;.</p><p>They are, in other words, a cornerstone of what somebody once called the &quot;big society&quot; and an agent of social and economic regeneration of once bleak town centres. Many local authorities understand this. David Martin, of <a href="http://coliseum.org.uk/" title="">Oldham Coliseum</a>, told us how his council has invested in the refurbishment of the theatre, recognising its value in changing public perceptions of the town and creating a constructive night-time economy. Gemma Bodinetz recounted how Liverpool council had funded lighting for a football ground, following a community project led by the <a href="http://everymanplayhouse.com/Content/Home.aspx" title="">Playhouse</a>'s technical team. Meanwhile, Erica Whyman, of <a href="http://www.northernstage.co.uk/" title="">Northern Stage</a>, reported that studies by Newcastle's principal cultural venues estimate that for every pound invested in their buildings, &pound;4 is returned into the local economy. These dramatic transformations are not confined to the regions.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/18/nicholas-hytner-cuts-regional-theatres">Continue reading...</a>TheatreRecessionStageArts Council EnglandCultureUK newsSun, 18 Nov 2012 00:06:42 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/18/nicholas-hytner-cuts-regional-theatresPool/Getty ImagesDanny Boyle, staunch defender of a national theatre network. Photograph: Pool/Getty ImagesPool/Getty ImagesDanny Boyle, staunch defender of a national theatre network. Photograph: Pool/Getty ImagesNicholas Hytner2012-11-18T00:06:42ZOn tax avoidance, allow me to leap to the defence of the super-rich | Nicholas Hytnerhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/12/tax-avoidance-defence-super-rich
The Tories are discouraging high earners from giving their money away, tarring philanthropy with the brush of tax avoidance<p>The fallout from last month's budget has included much that is surreal, but nothing has been stranger than Downing Street's attempt to justify the reduction of tax relief on charitable donations by higher-rate taxpayers. The government has explicitly and frequently hymned the benefits of philanthropy, but George Osborne now declares himself <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/10/george-osborne-shocked-tax-avoidance?newsfeed=true" title="">shocked by how extensive tax avoidance is among the wealthy</a>, and has explained that it has been therefore necessary to limit the tax they can claim back on the money they give to good causes.</p><p>As the chancellor is so keen to associate himself with the general distaste for the super-rich, let me – as a representative of what his party probably looks on as the leftwing arts establishment – spring to the defence of a significant number of them. There are many very wealthy people who are keenly aware of how fortunate they are. They consider it their responsibility to give away a large proportion of their wealth. I know some of them from their association with the National Theatre, and those who give to the National also – invariably – give to many other good causes: to charities concerned with foreign aid, social welfare, education and medical research. Many of them give a great deal more each year than the 25% of their income that will become the limit that qualifies for tax relief under the new budget.&nbsp;</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/12/tax-avoidance-defence-super-rich">Continue reading...</a>PhilanthropyCharitiesSocietyGeorge OsborneTax and spendingConservativesPoliticsTaxMoneyTheatreStageUK newsVoluntary sectorThu, 12 Apr 2012 20:10:01 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/12/tax-avoidance-defence-super-richEric Nathan/Alamy/PRThe National Theatre in London. Photograph: Eric Nathan/AlamyEric Nathan/Alamy/PRThe National Theatre in London. Photograph: Eric Nathan/AlamyNicholas Hytner2012-04-12T20:10:01ZMichael Grandage to start new theatre companyhttp://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/nov/23/michael-grandage-new-theatre-company
Donmar chief's next step is to form independent production company with former colleague James Bierman<p>Michael Grandage, the <a href="http://www.michaelgrandage.com/index.php?pid=14" title="">outgoing artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse</a>, has ruled himself out of taking the same role at the National Theatre in an <a href="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/theatre/article-24012597-moving-on-up-michael-grandages-next-venture.do" title="">interview with the Evening Standard</a>.</p><p></p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/nov/23/michael-grandage-new-theatre-company">Continue reading...</a>TheatreRoyal Shakespeare CompanyStageCultureMichael GrandageWed, 23 Nov 2011 12:50:46 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/nov/23/michael-grandage-new-theatre-companySarah Lee/GuardianNew direction ... Michael Grandage. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the GuardianSarah Lee/GuardianMichael Grandage, theatre director and artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, London. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the GuardianMatt Trueman2011-11-23T12:50:46ZNicholas Hytner on rehearsing for Verdi's Don Carlos at Royal Opera Househttp://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/may/30/filmandmusic1.filmandmusic17
Twenty years ago Nicholas Hytner directed Schiller's Don Carlos. As he takes on Verdi's opera, he finds the play transformed by the passion, yearning and fury of the music<p>The received wisdom that stage adaptations of movies are bad things that reveal the imaginative poverty of their creators took a battering recently with Kneehigh Theatre's Brief Encounter. Who'd want to see a West End knock-off of an acknowledged cinematic masterpiece? Why not write your own story instead of plundering the genius of others? To these questions, Kneehigh provided the answers in the form first of an exhilaratingly theatrical celebration of all the film's virtues: its sincerity, sense of place and throbbing undertow of frustrated longing. To all this the show added a mischievous wit, and a captivating dialogue between stage and screen made possible by video technology that would have been beyond the imagination of the original film-makers. It is as complete a reinvention of the film as the film was a reinvention of the one-act play, Still Life, that Noel Coward cannibalised for his screenplay.</p><p>If there is today widespread confusion about what constitutes originality, past dramatists would barely have recognised the problem. The shock of the new lay for them largely in the telling of the story, not in the story itself: audiences delighted in the unfamiliar presentation of familiar material. When Shakespeare opened Henry V at the Globe, his was at least the fourth Henry V play to run in London in 10 years. He probably borrowed from all of them; and he lifted scenes wholesale from the only other Henry V play, besides his own, to have survived. He would certainly have been run out of town by the modern plagiarism police.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/may/30/filmandmusic1.filmandmusic17">Continue reading...</a>Classical musicMusicCultureFriedrich SchillerNicholas HytnerGiuseppe VerdiThu, 29 May 2008 23:10:21 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/may/30/filmandmusic1.filmandmusic17Nicholas Hytner2008-05-29T23:10:21ZFull profilehttp://www.theguardian.com/global/2007/jul/25/resource3
<p>Nicholas Hytner has been Director of the National Theatre since 2003, where his recent productions include The Man of Mode, The Alchemist, Southwark Fair, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, His Dark Materials, Alan Bennett's The History Boys, David Hare's Stuff Happens, and Henry V.</p><p>His previous productions for the National include The Wind in the Willows, The Madness of George III and Carousel; other London work has included Miss Saigon (also Broadway and worldwide), The Importance of Being Earnest and The Lady in the Van. His film credits include The History Boys, The Madness of King George and The Crucible</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global/2007/jul/25/resource3">Continue reading...</a>Nicholas HytnerWed, 25 Jul 2007 14:45:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/global/2007/jul/25/resource3Nicholas Hytner2007-07-25T14:45:00ZWhat I really think about theatre criticshttp://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2007/jun/03/whatireallythinkaboutthea
It's time to set the record straight about the 'dead white male' debate.<p><img height="300" width="460" src="http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2007/05/25/matend460.jpg" alt="A Matter of Life and Death" /><br /><span class="caption">Showing at Nick Hytner's National: A Matter of Life and Death. Photograph: Tristram Kenton</span></p><p>A couple of weeks ago, I took a call late on a Friday afternoon from a smart young journalist asking why it's taken so long for female theatre directors to achieve the kind of prominence they now enjoy. What kind of prejudice, he wondered, had they been forced to overcome? As if to demonstrate that nobody is free from prejudice (or at least that I'm not), <a href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/article1785100.ece">I chatted idly and intemperately</a> about male theatre critics, among other things, accusing them of giving my female colleagues a hard time.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2007/jun/03/whatireallythinkaboutthea">Continue reading...</a>StageSat, 02 Jun 2007 23:07:29 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2007/jun/03/whatireallythinkabouttheaNicholas Hytner2007-06-02T23:07:29ZNicholas Hytner: The show must go onhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/feb/28/comment.olympics2012
The salvage of the ever-costlier 2012 Olympics should not come at the expense of British arts<p>Evidence emerged in a recent Italian study that surprised us more than it surprised the Italians. It revealed that far fewer Italians visit museums or go to the theatre than we do. The birthplace of opera and cradle of the Renaissance, Italy has intermittently subsidised its performing arts much more generously than we ever have. But arts patronage in Italy and the rest of Europe has historically been at the whim of the prince or the state, and for their glory. By contrast, arts patronage here has put at the top of its agenda the engagement of the widest possible public with the best possible art. As a result, nowhere are more people more often galvanised by the best their performing artists have to offer.</p><p>There are advantages to the continental system. The princes, and their successors in the culture ministries, have often had terrific, even adventurous, taste. Their artists have never had to be slaves to the box office, whereas English theatre has always been popular theatre. But it has been animated by the convictions that inspired the great heroine of English theatre, Lilian Baylis, the driving force behind the Royal Ballet, English National Opera, and the National Theatre. &quot;I know,&quot; she said, &quot;that those who have been nourished on great music and drama, or have discovered the true recreation that they provide, will never again accept jejune and trashy entertainments whose claim on the mind is absolutely transitory.&quot;</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/feb/28/comment.olympics2012">Continue reading...</a>Olympic Games 2012TheatreArtUK newsSportCultureStageNicholas HytnerOlympicsWed, 28 Feb 2007 00:08:02 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/feb/28/comment.olympics2012Nicholas Hytner2007-02-28T00:08:02ZObituary: Steven Pimlotthttp://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/feb/16/guardianobituaries.obituaries
A theatre director with operatic flair, he embraced high art and commercial success<p>An artistic associate of the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he was appointed an associate director in 1996, he also pursued a successful international career as an opera director (working at first with Opera North and the English National Opera from the mid-1970s) and then as a director of big West End musicals: he staged the gloriously excessive revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, starring Jason Donovan, at the London Palladium in 1991 (the production later went on tour in Britain, Canada, Australia and north America); a colourfully extravagant revival of Leslie Bricusse's Doctor Doolittle at the Apollo, Hammersmith, in 1998; and Andrew Lloyd Webber's &quot;Bollywood&quot; production of A R Rahman's Bombay Dreams (2002) at the Apollo, Victoria.</p><p>Pimlott's career, like that of his close contemporary, the slightly younger Nicholas Hytner - they were both educated at Manchester grammar school and Cambridge University - was in many ways made possible by Trevor Nunn, the first modern-day director to become seriously wealthy by mixing a career in the subsidised sector with commercial success.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/feb/16/guardianobituaries.obituaries">Continue reading...</a>Fri, 16 Feb 2007 11:22:53 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/feb/16/guardianobituaries.obituariesMichael Coveney and Nicholas Hytner2007-02-16T11:22:53ZIn tribute to Steven Pimlott, 1953-2007http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2007/feb/15/tributetostevenpimlott
Steven was my lifelong friend and inspiration, and he will be sadly missed by all who knew him.<p><img height="308" width="460" src="http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/steven460.jpg" alt="steven460.jpg" /><br /><span class="caption">Steven Pimlott directing Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None at the Gielgud Theatre in 2005. Photograph: Tristram Kenton.</span></p><p>Steven Pimlott, who <a href="http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/obituary/0,,2013749,00.html">died last night from throat cancer</a>, had a superhuman appetite for experience. I saw him first in 1967 when as a new boy at Manchester grammar school - I watched his performance as Claire Zachanassian in Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit. It remains one of the most terrifying and glamorous performances I have ever seen. He was three years older than me and I aspired to be his friend, and to copy everything that he did. I have since to a large degree followed in his footsteps, and his friendship has immeasurably enriched my life, as it has countless others.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2007/feb/15/tributetostevenpimlott">Continue reading...</a>StageThu, 15 Feb 2007 15:03:42 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2007/feb/15/tributetostevenpimlottNicholas Hytner2007-02-15T15:03:42ZNicholas Hytner on adapting The History Boys for filmhttp://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/sep/16/theatre.stage
Adapting their hit play The History Boys for film, Nicholas Hytner explains why he and Alan Bennett decided not to tamper with a winning formula<p>The History Boys is the second film that Alan Bennett and I have made together. The first, in 1994, was The Madness of King George. Both started as plays at the National Theatre, though The Madness of King George had its title helpfully changed on the journey from stage to screen, as it was feared that for an audience unversed in the history of the English monarchy, the title of the play - The Madness of George III - might imply it was the sequel to The Madness of George I and The Madness of George II.</p><p>Despite the shortcomings of its title, there always seemed to be a film in The Madness of George III. It took us longer to believe that The History Boys, the strengths of which included neither a driving narrative nor any whiff of the picturesque, belonged on screen. As there seemed to be no point in trying to parachute into the material cinematic attributes it had no interest in possessing, the point of a History Boys film would be that it would allow us to intensify what was exciting about the play. Maybe it could bring us closer to the protagonists, get under their skins. Maybe it could capture their speed of thought and the glitter of their intellects. But whatever else it turned out to be, it would be about eight boys and four teachers. So when we finally started to think about making it, we knew it would also be about the 12 actors who had created them.</p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/sep/16/theatre.stage">Continue reading...</a>TheatreStageBooksFilmCultureStageFilmAlan BennettNicholas HytnerFri, 15 Sep 2006 23:19:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/sep/16/theatre.stageNicholas Hytner2006-09-15T23:19:00ZTo hell with targetshttp://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2003/jan/12/featuresreview.review
In this trenchant manifesto, the new director of the National Theatre challenges received wisdom on the role of the arts and calls for a fundamental shift in Britain's cultural thinking<p>It is therefore with a twinge of disappointment that I am forced to break with tradition and recognise the seriousness with which the Department of Culture has been taking our cultural life. It would simply be churlish not to salute the impressive injection of cash into the arts that has been engineered by Tessa Jowell and her predecessor Chris Smith. In 1998, our allocation was &pound;189 million. By 2005, we'll be getting more than &pound;410m. </p><p>There's an implicit challenge in this devoutly wished-for largess. Here's the cash: spend it so we know why you wanted it in the first place. It's time for a new agenda for the performing arts, a chance for all of us to wrestle confidently with the business of what we are here for. </p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2003/jan/12/featuresreview.review">Continue reading...</a>CultureNicholas HytnerSun, 12 Jan 2003 04:21:43 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2003/jan/12/featuresreview.reviewNicholas Hytner2003-01-12T04:21:43ZIt's the way you tell 'emhttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/mar/16/2
So what if there are no new stories? There are endless ways to breathe life into old ones, says Nicholas Hytner<p>It is a much-quoted maxim that there are only seven stories. They are, apparently, Orpheus, Achilles, Cinderella, Tristan and Isolde, Circe, Romeo and Juliet, and Faust. All other stories are adaptations of these. </p><p>Those who doubt this theory should know that if you have ever been involved in movie-making for the popular audience, you sometimes feel that the idea that there are as many as seven stories is pushing it a bit. There is a single formula, and you can learn it in a weekend. You can buy computer programmes that flash warning signs if you depart from it as you write your screenplay. </p> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/mar/16/2">Continue reading...</a>BooksCultureNicholas HytnerSat, 16 Mar 2002 01:16:02 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/mar/16/2Nicholas Hytner2002-03-16T01:16:02Z